Lady Mastermind
Regan Wyngarde is one of the three known children of the powerful illusionist Jason Wyngarde , aka Mastermind. Much like her half-sister Martinique Jason , Regan is even more powerful than her father, as she has mild telepathic abilities which allow her to insert hyper-realistic images into her victim’s mind. Whilst her early life is shrouded in mystery, it appears she was well aware of the existence of Martinique and the fact that her father was a super-villain. Regan didn’t come out of the shadows until after his death, when she took the name Lady Mastermind as a way to honor him. History Hired By the Black King Regan was hired by Sebastian Shaw , who was seeking revenge on his former assistant Sage for her betrayal of being an undercover agent for the X-Men. Sage was operating as a coordinator for Storm's team of X-Men when Lady Mastermind struck. While it would have been easy to place Sage in an illusion and simply kill her, that wasn’t Regan’s style. Instead, she decided to pull specific memories from Sage’s mind and force her to live them over and over again, slowly twisting them each time. Unfortunately for Regan, Sage had formidable mental abilities herself and managed to see through Lady Mastermind’s illusions to begin with and knocked her captor out. Sage was soon captured by Shaw, though, and Regan adjusted her technique and overpowered Sage until she was catatonic. The ultimate goal of the plan was to destroy any good memory of Sage’s time with the X-Men and leave her with a complete devotion to Shaw. Unfortunately, Sage’s fellow X-Men complicated things when they became involved and Regan had to use her powers to deal with them too. When Rogue squared off against her, Regan entered the X-Man’s mind and found one of her deepest fears and exploited it. She made Rogue believe her team had been killed by a man named Vargas and so the super-strong woman went on the warpath. Regan then stuck close to Rogue, manipulating her into seeing Vargas every time one of her teammates showed up. Regan’s downfall came from one of the X-Men’s newest members, Lifeguard , who could manifest any power she needed to save someone’s life. Entering Sage’s mind, Lifeguard tried to free her from the illusion but became caught up in Lady Mastermind’s tricks herself. In a deadly showdown in Sage’s psyche, Lifeguard managed to turn Regan’s powers back on herself, causing a huge psychic backlash and putting the illusionist in a vegetative state. Joining Rogue's X-Men Regan remained unresponsive for some time and her body was somehow obtained by a clinic that experimented on mutants. When most of the world’s mutants were depowered, Regan managed to retain her powers and the X-Men’s mutant detecting device Cerebro picked up her power signature. As there were so few mutants left, the X-Men investigated and they found her in a hospital alongside the Sentinel-cyborg Karima Shapandar . After a fight with the surprisingly well-armed soldiers who were guarding the women, the X-Men took the still-comatose Regan back to the Institute to recover. Even though she remained unconscious, Regan’s powers still proved to be dangerous to those around her. When the Children of the Vault attacked the X-Men, one of their members, Serafina, found Regan and bio-cybernetically hijacked her body, using her powers to envelope Cannonball in an illusion where her name was called "Sarah" and she was married to Cannonball. This intrusion was enough of a stimulus for Regan to regain consciousness and she awoke to find herself wearing a rather unfetching hospital gown in the X-Men’s medical bay. Beast explained to her how the X-Men found her and the only clue as to who initially captured her was the name “Pan". Regan didn’t care, though. She set her sights on Serafina and joined Rogue’s team of X-Men in a bid to gain revenge, however Rogue kept an eye on Regan due to their last encounter. When Rogue discovered that Pan and the Children of the Vault were linked, she took her team to storm their giant flying ship. Despite having just woken from a coma, Regan managed to aid the team immediately by creating a distraction to fool the Children. Once on the ship, the two groups got to fighting and Regan quickly showed that, while she was technically one of the X-Men, she didn’t hold to their no-kill policy. When she was seemingly cornered by some of the Children, she used her illusions to trick Fuego into killing Aguja and his allies. The Children were eventually defeated and Rogue’s team of X-Men were allowed to keep operating, despite the presence of Lady Mastermind and some other villainous members, like Sabortooth and Mystique. Time with the X-Men Regan quickly proved quite useful by using her powers to identify one of the men who used to work at the hospital in which she had been held captive. As they were interrogating him, though, Regan’s mean streak became apparent for all to see. When they tracked down more hospital workers, Regan couldn’t help but kick one square in the head for the fun of it. Rogue reprimanded her for her actions and reminded her that she was only on the team because she had a personal stake in the mission. The group soon discovered that the man behind everything, Pan, was a scientist named Richard Palance. Unfortunately, when they found his base, they fell into his trap and he kidnapped Rogue and knocked the rest of the team out. Lady Mastermind was none too pleased with the situation but she stuck with her team and together they used a teleport gate to follow Pan and Rogue. When they eventually discovered Pan’s real base, they were confused, as it wasn’t exactly in a private area. However, Regan knew she was being tricked and used her powers to reverse the illusion around the area and show it for what it was. They entered the building, which turned out to be a very advanced laboratory, and Regan let loose on the soldiers guarding the place. Regan had been having headaches ever since she woke from her coma but something new happened when a bolt of energy erupted out of her head and knocked one of the guards out, Iceman was shocked by what had happened, but Regan dismissed it and continued her onslaught. When Pan arrived, though, he proved no match for Regan, so he turned her illusions around on her and knocked her out. Regan was taken by some of the doctors and was about to be vivisected but she was saved by Mystique. Meanwhile, Pan had been loading himself up with various mutant powers but he was eventually taken down by Rogue. However, before she could deal justice, she fell unconscious and so Lady Mastermind happily got payback and trapped Pan in a persistent illusion where he was lost in a giant maze. Dealing with the Mummudrai As Rogue’s condition was getting worse, Cable took her to Cable, his island base, and Lady Mastermind tagged along for the ride. Cable made it perfectly clear, though, that he didn’t trust Regan one bit and warned her against acting out. Cable’s distrust was not without merit, as the moment he left Regan took the opportunity to use her powers to explore his base and locate the psychiatric unit. Her recent headaches and power fluctuations had alarmed her enough to seek help, as she could feel that there was something sinister lurking in her mind. The resident psychiatrist wasn’t keen on Regan’s inpromptu visit but an illusion of a squad of armed guard convinced him to look at her case. With the combination of her own powers and some hypnosis, Regan was able to walk through her own mind and she quickly discovered that she was correct in her instinct that she wasn’t alone. However, when she tried to interact with the parasite in her mind, it took control of her and starting lashing out with her powers. The parasite was an entity called a Mummudrai and it had come with a warning for Earth. The Hecatomb, an ancient Shi’ar psychic weapon that fed on people’s minds, was descending on the planet and the X-Men were the only ones that could stop it. While many of the other X-Men failed in their attempts to stop the Hecatomb, Lady Mastermind’s illusions were real enough to trick the mental being and slow it down for a while. Regan’s heroic moment quickly faded as things started to go bad again and her immediate reaction was to flee. Unfortunately for her, there was nowhere to run to. It was Rogue who managed to destroy the Hetacomb by absorbing the billions of minds within it into herself. Joining the Murauders When Rogue returned to her old home in Mississippi to recover from her ordeal, Regan and the rest of the team followed her. When the X-Men were called to help, Lady Mastermind seemed just to hang out in the background. In truth, the X-Men should have been watching her more closely, as Lady Mastermind was about to reveal her true colors in the most brutal way possible. Unbeknownst to them, both Regan and Mystique had been recruited by Mister Sinister and were playing along until the right moment. With a house full of X-Men, Lady Mastermind dropped an illusion she had been holding and revealed the Murauders were there as well. The heroes were outnumbered, outsmarted and outmatched, and they quickly fell to the might of the deadly team. Sinister had been taking out every mutant with knowledge of the future and Rogue was on his list because she had read Murauders’s prophetic diaries. With the X-Men defeated and Rogue captured, Lady Mastermind and the Marauders returned to Sinister to wait for the next stage in their plan. Messiah Complex The reason for Mister Sinister’s actions became apparent when the first new mutant baby was born after M-Day. Sinister had sent some Marauders to claim the child but discovered someone had gotten there first. He knew the X-Men would come calling sooner or later and his assumption proved correct when his Antarctic base was raided. Regan stood by the Marauders and took on her former team, personally helping to take Wolverine out the fight. The X-Men left but the base was destroyed and so Regan accompanied Sinister to Muir Island, where he prepared for his endgame. After Sinister eventually got his hands on the child, the Marauders prepared for the inevitable attack from the X-Men. When the Blackbird jet was spotted, Regan cast the Muir Island complex in an illusion that hid any sign of the Marauders. Unfortunately for her, Wolverine was becoming well versed in how to spot an illusion and he saw through Regan’s, stabbing her through the torso. Bleeding out and at death’s door, Regan was no use in the following fight that saw the defeat of Mister Sinister and the splintering of the X-Men. Joining The Sisterhood With Sinister and many of the Marauders dead, Regan went off alone and kept a low profile as she healed. She was eventually brought back into the X-Men’s lives thanks to Mandelyne Pryor, who was looking to form her own Sisterhood. Madelyne Pryor found Regan in a rare moment of reflection at her father’s grave and offered to bring him back to life in return for her services. Regan was angered to see her half-sister Martinique amongst the Sisterhood and immediately put off the idea. Martinique spoke up, though, and vouched for Madelyne, saying that, regardless of their feelings towards one another, their father could be brought back. Regan still wanted proof and so that night the Sisterhood stole the body of Revanche to use as a demonstration. Using the life forces of the Sisterhood, Madelyne cast a spell and healed the body, transferring the mind of Psylocke inside it. Regan’s doubts were extinguished and Madelyne explained that the next stage in her plan required the Sisterhood to storm the X-Men’s base. They waited for everyone to go to bed and then they struck, with Spiral teleporting everyone inside. Regan was key in trapping the X-Men in a group illusion so that they wouldn’t interfere with the Sisterhood’s plan. She even managed to catch Emma Frost off-guard and trap her in a special illusion before the X-Woman could put her psychic defenses up. Regan’s undoing, though, was her arrogance, as she taunted Emma but underestimated her power. Emma broke free of the illusion and turned into her diamond form, beating Regan black and blue for her troubles. Emma then freed everyone else from Regan’s group illusion, after which the Sisterhood had to escape quickly. Nevertheless, the Sisterhood succeeded in its plan of obtaining a DNA sample of Jean Grey, the woman Madelyne had been cloned from many years ago. Madelyne was currently nothing more than a realistic-looking astral entity and was looking for a suitable body to be reborn again into the world. The Sisterhood teleported back to base but, with the X-Men hot on their tails, Madelyne needed to act fast. She left Regan and her sister at the base while she went off to try and execute the final stage in the plan. Regan wasn’t happy at being left as bait and in fact they were soon set upon by the X-Men, who beat the girls easily. Madelyne failed in her attempt to be reborn and so Spiral grabbed the remaining Sisterhood, including Regan, and teleported away before any more damage was done. Pixie Strikes Back The Sisterhood went their separate ways but Regan and her sister stuck together, despite their animosity towards one another. They went back to living in their father’s house and it was here that they received an unlikely visitor in the form of a fairy woman. The woman was looking for her daughter and had come to the Mastermind sisters, as they held the key to finding her. Regan discovered she had another half-sister in the form of Pixie , one of the X-Men’s students. Regan was disgusted at being related to the perky Pixie but not exactly surprised, given their father’s reputation. Regan wasn’t particularly keen on helping the woman either, especially if it meant getting involved with the X-Men, but Pixie’s mother appealed to her ego. After seeing they could be more powerful as a trio, the sisters reluctantly agreed to help and, using the genetic bond the girls shared, a spell was cast to locate Pixie. They found Pixie and discovered she had been kidnapped by demons who were using her to get to her fairy mother’s magic. Despite their different moral compasses, the three girls managed to work together briefly to defeat the demon leader. Pixie even took pity on Regan when the X-Men turned their attention to the villainous illusionists, as she teleported her sisters away before they could be apprehended. After Avengers vs X-Men Unfortunately for them, both sisters were apprehended at some point and put into prisons for their crimes. Whilst Martinique was sent to a regular prison for super-powered individuals, Regan was obviously deemed more of a threat, because she ended up on the Raft, a maximum security prison. Her salvation came in the form of Mystique, who had need of Regan’s powers and lethal attitude. Regan’s first act upon being released from her cell was to trap the guards in an illusion where they were being attacked by zombie super-heroes. Mystique had recently had an epiphany and realized mutants were in the same place they were many years before, so she may as well just make her own life comfortable instead. Regan joined her and, along with Sabretooth, they set about stealing large amounts of money from various banks and businesses. Each had their own role in the raids. While Mystique was the infiltrator, Sabortooth would act as the muscle and Regan was used as a distraction. Upon Mystique’s order, Regan used illusions of the X-Men attacking the various locations to distract the civilians inside and to also implicate the X-Men in the thefts. Soon enough, though, Regan became suspicious of Mystique’s true motives and the fact that she always had to use the X-Men as antagonists. Mystique’s endgame was soon revealed when she set a meeting up with Madame Hydra , the current ruler of Madripoor, and offered to buy the island. During the negotiations, though, the X-Men found the villains and stormed the warehouse they were using to store the money. Regan was shocked to see Jean Grey amongst the X-Men and learned that the young girl had been brought from the past to the present. She saw an opportunity to take revenge on Jean, as it had been the actions of her older, future self that destroyed her family and drove her father insane. She created an illusion of her father Jason and caused Jean to think she had become the Phoenix again. She was edging Jean to use her powerful telekinetic blasts on her friends but Wolverine managed to snap the young girl out of it, much to Regan’s disappointment. Jean was angry at being manipulated and lashed out at Regan, knocking her down. When the tides turned against the villains, Regan tricked everyone into thinking the Avengers had arrived and she made her escape. Unfortunately for her, Kitty Pryde found her trying to fly a jet away and knocked her out cold. Whilst Mystique was put in prison, it would seem Regan gave the authorities the slip once more, as she was soon seen causing trouble again. Testing her strength Despite Regan’s apathetic attitude, at times she clearly wanted to become better at using her powers and strived to push herself to create even more realistic illusions. She just needed practice. To that end, when she saw Anole, one of the X-Men’s students, she realized she had found the perfect guinea-pig. Anole had skipped out on a first date with a guy because he was afraid that his reptilian appearance would scare him off. Regan latched onto this insecurity and trapped Anole in an illusion that preyed on his fears of rejection. She was having a wonderful time watching the boy succumb to his fears and it got better when a couple of X-Men turned up to help. She immediately trapped them in their own fear-based illusions and the trick worked, for a while at least. As he had faced his fears numerous times, Nightcrawler broke out of Regan’s illusion and forced Anole to do the same. Regan’s over-confidence worked against her once more when she allowed herself to get too close to the X-Men and she was knocked unconscious by Anole. M-Pox Regan is revealed to be one of the many mutants poisoned by the Terrign Cloud roaming the Earth's atmosphere. Suffering from the M-Pox and fearing to die alone, she trapped as many people as she could in illusions, and planned to take them with her. Regan was however found by Moonstar and tries to reason with her to release the people she put under let the X-Men help her, at first Regan refuses and tries to trap Moonstar in an illusion. As Moonstar resisted her illusion Regan begs her to stop fighting stating if she is going to die she won't die alone, persistent Moonstar tells her that she understand her fear and pain more than she knows, but Regan finds it hard to believe saying to her that she has no idea what it's Like to live with fear. To show how much she understood Moonstar shows Regan her memories and all the pain she went through cancelling her illusion in the process, As the M-Pox began killing Regan, she begs Moonstar end her suffering by killing her unwilling to live with the pain. But Moonstar convinces her not to give up and maintain her courage no matter what happens. Moonstar transports Regan to X-Haven, where the healers managed to stabilize her condition as Moonstar leaves her to get healed, Regan thanks her for making her see the error of her ways Navigation Category:Marvel Villains Category:Comic Book Villains Category:X-Men Villains Category:Female Category:Mutants Category:Terrorists Category:Fighters Category:Wolverine Villains Category:Aristocrats Category:Cheater Category:Mastermind Category:Traitor Category:Tragic Category:Femme Fatale Category:Sadists Category:Remorseful Category:Torturer Category:Strategic Category:Arrogant Category:Vengeful Category:In Love Category:Faux Affably Evil Category:Mentally Ill Category:Thrill-Seekers Category:Charismatic Category:Trickster Category:One-Man Army Category:On & Off Category:Criminals